The SS Gairsoppa was carrying seven million ounces of silver, worth around Â£155 ($241) million at today's prices.

The 412 foot steel-hulled ship was torpedoed while in the service of the Ministry of War Transport.

Odyssey Marine Exploration said it had confirmed the identity and location of the shipwreck site, nearly 4,700 metres below the surface of the North Atlantic, about 300 miles off the coast of Ireland in international waters.

The company said in a statement: "Contemporary research and official documents indicate that the ship was carrying Â£600,000 (1941 value) or seven million total ounces of silver, including over three million ounces of private silver bullion insured by the UK government, which would make it the largest known precious metal cargo ever recovered from the sea."

In 2010 the UK Department for Transport awarded the company, through a competitive tender process, the exclusive salvage contract for the cargo of the ship.

Under the agreement, Odyssey will retain 80 percent of the value of the silver.

Quote:Attached to convoy SL-64 under master Gerald Hyland, she was returning from India to Britain in 1941 with a cargo of silver ingots, pig iron and tea.[2][3] Joining the 8 knot convoy in Freetown, Sierra Leone,[4] while in a heavy storm and running low on coal off the coast of neutral Republic of Ireland, Gairsoppa split off from the convoy and set course for Galway harbour.

She was circled by a German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 aircraft at 08:00 on 16th February, and at 22.30 was spotted by U-101, under the command of Ernst Mengersen. Torpedoed on the starboard side in No. 2 hold, she sank within 20 minutes (Note: German logbooks kept in German time state she sank at 00.08 hours on February 17, 1941)